Cardiovascular Sensor

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Cardiovascular Sensor

Chapter 39
Cardiovascular Sensor and genetics

Training video

Spoken text of the video

Section 1: Intro

Chapter 39, Heart Health and Genetics. A specific training for the Cardiovascular Sensor. We will find this test here. It is called the Cardiovascular Sensor. It is for cholesterol problems, elevated triglycerides, homocysteine, which is something similar to cholesterol, high levels of which promote heart disease, arteriosclerosis and sudden cardiac arrest. This test has three beneficial functions. The first is it helps prevent a disease if you have an increased risk. The second is it helps diagnose it in time. The third is it improves treatment if you have already developed it. So, it is recommended for healthy people as well as people who are already suffering from heart diseases or one of these problems.

Section 2: The Cardiovascular Sensor

Genetics has a strong influence on a lot of factors behind heart health. For example, they can cause a predisposition to high LDL cholesterol, which is a type of fat in blood. High LDL cholesterol is bad cholesterol. HDL cholesterol is also bad, but low HDL cholesterol is good cholesterol. There are omega-3 fatty acids which are found in fish oil capsules for example. People take them because they hope that they improve their HDL cholesterol. Some people have genetic variations where these capsules actually are not beneficial, but it is the opposite, they actually make it worse.

Then, there are high triglycerides, which are influenced by genetics. As I said, high homocysteine is a substance in the blood, it is actually amine acid. If it is elevated it increases the risk of heart disease. It can be lowered by certain substances like folic acid and B vitamins. In some genetic types, it is also possible to use vitamin B2 to improve homocysteine levels. However, other genetic types do not get this positive effect. Then, we also have the prolongation of the QT intervals. If you look at an electrocardiogram, you might have seen this in ER series. It is that line that goes up and shows you the sign of a heart beat. There are certain regions in this heart beat which are called QT intervals. Certain genetic variations cause some people to have a prolonged QT intervals. This also has been linked to an increased risk of sudden cardiac death, a heart attack. We can also test for this and certain drugs have also shown to prolong the QT interval. Then, you need to be careful.

Therefore, we have 26 different drugs that are commonly used to treat heart disease or any of these factors and we can estimate the function and the effect of each drug and what the perfect dosage is or what drug you should avoid because it might cause side effects in you. This here is a long list of genes. If this table does not mean anything to you, please do watch the training of simple disease risk statistics. Let me quickly summarize this for you. This is the gene. This is the catalogue number for the genetic variation in this gene. This is scientific stuff. These are actually the genetic results.

The G/G is the genotype, a G in each one of the genes. In this case, we do not have an odds ratio and increased risk of the disease because every one of them does cause a disease risk, but it is for different things. One is for high LDL cholesterol. The other one is for sudden cardiac death. So, we do not want to combine them because it would be scientifically incorrect. That is why we do not have any odds ratio numbers in here. RESPOND means they respond particularly well to something. Risk means an increased risk for something. Again, watch the training for this kind of table, in case this does not mean anything to you. The same goes for this here. Just to summarize this for you. This is the gene. The G/G genotype is 64 % and there is 2.23 percent higher risk, i.e. 123 % higher risk, for coronary heart disease in this case. For another gene, there is 30 % of no risk, 50 % of 1.47 risk and so on. Here is the science behind it.

This is a cut-off from the report. You can really look at every one of these genes in detail. The X shows what the actual result of this one person is and it will help you look into the information. This is actually an interesting information. 96 % who have this genotype have no increased risk. However, 3 % have an increased risk of coronary heart disease, a predisposition to low HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol, and a predisposition to elevated triglyceride levels. So, this genetic variation has really a number of different effects. The same here. 10 % have an increased risk. 18 % have no increased risk of disease. 76 % have no increased risk. 1 % have an increased risk for coronary heart disease and so on. Here is the predisposition to elevated homocysteine levels, which as I said one of these substances that are not good for heart health.

Here is an interesting information with aspirin. If you have the T/T genotype, for 74 % of the population aspirin will protect against thrombosis. In 24 % of a T/C genotype, aspirin provides no protection against thrombosis. So, 26 % of the population will not benefit from the thrombosis-protecting effect of aspirin. This needs to be considered because there are some drugs, blood thinners, that entirely work on the action of aspirin. Here is the predisposition to good or bad HDL cholesterol levels and so on. This here again is a cut-off from the report.

I am going back a step. This here is very scientific. I would not really explain it to customers. This is just scientific stuff. Scientists can check up what we claim. This is what I would show to the customer or to the patient. For one thing, you see the general risk of coronary heart disease and so on. This is the average risk. The risk that the general population has. This is a much higher risk. This is the highest possible genetic risk. It might also be here in the green area where protection. It means that you have a lower risk than that of the general population. For this person with an arrow here, it is an increased risk compared to everybody else. So, prevention, early detection and all of these preventive measures are very important for this person, much more than for the general population. Then, the LDL cholesterol levels are unlikely to be increased. As I said, LDL is a bad cholesterol. Due to genetics, this person has the tendency of having higher LDL cholesterol. HDL cholesterol, good cholesterol, which should be high, is in the middle. So, they have some tendency to have slightly lower HDL cholesterol levels. Homocysteine is likely to be quite normal. Vitamin B2 will not help to reduce homocysteine levels. Omega-3 is an important one. Omega-3 fatty acids, the fish oil capsules, will make HDL cholesterol worse not better. This is actually the same result that I personally have. So, I would not recommend fish oil capsules to help them improve their HDL cholesterol because it is bad for these people. Triglyceride levels are likely to be slightly increased which is not so good, but not as bad as it could be. As for the effect of aspirin, there is no protection for thrombosis and risk of sudden cardiac death, heart attack, is normal due to the genes that would prolong QT intervals. So, this is the information that we could gather from these 22 genetic variations.

Section 3: Prevention

The next step of course is to help prevent these diseases or these problems from occurring. As I said, this test has a number of functions. One is prevention of any of these problems from occurring. Early detection if they do occur. So, we can really get treatment in time. Finally, better treatment in case they have occurred.

Let us look at each of these in turn. For prevention, especially for people with high risk, it is important for them to improve their lifestyle, which could be regular exercise. It improves a number of blood parameters including cholesterol. Then, people should not smoke. Smoking is not just a risk factor for lung cancer but for a number of other diseases including heart health. Drinking much alcohol is detrimental. You should drink little alcohol and if you drink alcohol, wine in small amounts would be really beneficial and drinking stronger or larger amounts would be detrimental. A low-fat diet would be important. Less animal and more plant foods are important as well. So, you will have less animal fat and more plant oils because they are more positive. Vegetables would be better. Omega-3 fish oil capsules might be beneficial for some people, then we would recommend them, or they might be bad for some people, then we would not recommend them.

Section 4: Early detection

The next step is early detection. It would mean regular medical blood tests. If you have an increased risk, you really should go to your doctor and keep doing a checkup more frequently and earlier to make sure that they are treated and are under medical supervision. In case it is necessary because your QT intervals might be too long, you should do regular QT interval tests. You should also measure electrolyte levels when performing extreme sports. Your doctors will be able to keep an eye on each of these things and help you manage them and advise you what to do. That is what we would recommend. So, if you are the doctor, you can then do all of these tests to keep an eye on each of these factors, especially the ones where is there is an increased risk. So, we have prevention and early detection.

Section 5: Breakdown

The final thing is breakdown or better treatment. In case you have not seen it yet, there is a training of the Pharmaco Sensor of how drugs are metabolized by the body, how some of them cause side effects, some of them might not have an effect at all. So, we really recommend you to watch that training as well. From there we know that certain drugs go through certain enzyme systems to be broken down. If one of these enzyme systems have a genetic variation, a certain drug might not be broken down. If you take it every day, then you might end up with the drug building up and causing severe side effects.

So, what we can do is create this kind of list. You see the different types of substances. FDA here means it is a warning that the FDA in America has given that this drug is influenced by genetic variations and you should consider this. In some cases, the effect is slightly higher or normal. Breakdown might be slower. We do not have a good example here, but this drug is broken down slightly slower, than other drugs. It might even say 0 %, so the breakdown of the drug is completely inherited by genetic variations, in which case you would see here an alternative is advisable. So, go for a different drug if possible. You will also see different dosages. 100 % is the normal dosage. 140 % means you might even need more of the drug to have the same effect because the breakdown is also faster. So, you need more to keep more in the body because the body would remove it faster. Here you can really get the whole list.

Actually, here is a good example. Fluvastatin is broken down only 21 %, which means you would only need 20 % of the normal dose to have the same effect. If possible, you should use an alternative drug. This will help you choose the right drugs, the right concentration of the drug, and the right dose and improve the treatment of each of these drugs. So, we have prevention, early detection and better treatment all covered by this genetic test. Meaning, it is beneficial for people who do not have the disease yet or who already suffer from the disease and they want to have better treatment.

This is the end of chapter 39, Heart Health and Genetics, a specific training for the Cardiovascular Sensor.

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